At our most recent HubSpot Users Group event in Manchester, we discussed account based marketing and the new GDPR legislation. We invited Olivia Kirwan, Channel Account Manager at HubSpot, to talk about account based marketing, how you can align both marketing and sales, and how it can be used to improve your inbound marketing efforts. Here are the key takeaways.

Watch the Video:

&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;Your web browser does not support iframes, which means that the video Account Based Marketing The HubSpot Way cannot play.&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;

What is Account Based Marketing?

Account based marketing is a strategic approach to business marketing. Also known as key account marketing, it's based on account awareness where an organisation will approach and communicate with an individual prospect or customer account as markets of one. It's typically employed in enterprise level sales organisations.

It's different from just purchasing a list. Instead, it's about creating a strategic approach to communicate with the companies and people that you want to work with. There are various key practices when it comes to account based marketing and they include:

If you'd like to read the transcript from the talk, just click here. What follows is a reader optimised version.

Know Who You Want to Work With

The people you want to work with are the number one priority. You need to know who you want to work with. When you know who you want to work with, you can begin to research for and construct buyer personas which will help you create personalised, targeted content - just for them.

Personalised content is key. Never message people for the sake of messaging or because you need to fill up a certain quota. You need to be giving people information that might be useful to them, otherwise, they'll just unsubscribe. The content you market to a CEO will be different to the content you market to a salesperson. This is where buyer personas come in because they help guide your content towards a particular market so you can send them out and see results. And people appreciate that.

But it's not even a case of picking up the Yellow Pages and selecting groups of people - as Olivia pointed out. This leads us to our next point.

Know Why You Want to Work With Them

It's important that while you're looking from a sales perspective, you're not acting too sales-y. People always hang up the phone or ignore emails from salespeople. Take off the marketing or sales hat and put on the consumer one. You need to truly connect with your audience and in order to do that, you need to know why you're reaching out to them.

Again, it's about not messaging them for the sake of it. You don't want to annoy your customers with irrelevant emails nor do you want to waste your time contacting people who clearly aren't interested.

Whenever you're reaching out to your audience, whether it's by sending out an email, publishing a blog post or scheduling a tweet, always consider why you're connecting with them? What's the reason behind the reaching out? Are you being helpful with the content that you're providing and will they be interested in it? Remember, interesting and relevant content is much more likely to be shared which will make it more likely for you to obtain additional leads.

Smarketing is Key

Smarketing is a HubSpot term that combines marketing and sales because the two are supposed to work alongside each other. Why? Well, from a marketer's perspective, you've got great content out there and you want the sales team to position it correctly.

From a salesperson's perspective, you need to use the data collected by analysing the marketing content to correct the positioning.

Marketers will also use that data to optimise their future work.

And it goes on.

Have Metrics for Success and Break Them Down into Bite-Sized Chunks

It's important that you've clearly defined the metrics for success. Otherwise, you could be sending out many types of communications, reaching out to all of your customers and not knowing whether the results you're getting represent success or not.

Once you've done that, make sure you break them down into bite-sized, realistic chunks. This is an obvious tip but always give yourself realistic targets. For example, Olivia worked with her business development rep and set 20 as her realistic target. That made it much easier for her to see results in her work.

If you set too high of a target, you could be de-motivating yourself because you know you're never going to reach that number. Similarly, if your target is too low, you're not pushing yourself. It's important that you find that balance.

Work With the Tool That's Best For You

There are many different tools which can help you create optimised messages for your audience. From Facebook Messenger to Slack to GrowthBot, these can provide greater insight into your potential customers and help you create more optimised content to attract them towards your Marketing and Sales funnel.

Not only should there be a clear reason why you're reaching out, you should also use the tool that works best and is simplest for you and your business. HubSpot is an all-in-one marketing automation solution which offers a range of tools within a single platform so you don't need to log in and out of various applications. This makes it a great option for solo marketers, smaller businesses and people who are new to inbound marketing and automation software.

Get More Out of Your Marketing Efforts

Account based marketing can go a long way towards helping you create optimised content and an inbound marketing strategy that's geared for success. But there's still much more you need to know such as the marketing automation platform. We've created a comparison guide, pitting four of the most popular platforms against each other and weighing up their pros and cons so you can easily choose the one that best suits you and your business.

Download the free guide below.

The Transcript

- So my name's Olivia, Olivia Kirwan I am a Channel Account Manager at HubSpot, and I've probably been at HubSpot now nearly five years, and I work with the likes of Digital 22 who have just made diamond as well. So congratulations, so I think that's been on Rikki’s mind from this morning.

But I help pretty much agency's grow or to be more successful. One of the areas that I help them grow or to be more successful is around account based marketing. So what I want for you guys to take away from today is some practical elements on how you can run account based marketing, incorporate that as well around GDPR, and then also take practical elements.

So I wanna make sure that you guys are ultimately more engaged around ABM and what it means.

So, thank you also for inviting me today to Manchester. So, I've been to Manchester quite a few times. I used to live in London, and I used to love coming up to Manchester to go to the games and to go to old Trafford. The last time, I think, Manchester won 2-1, but I think we had the worst seats in the venue so it was a brilliant experience and we had a great night. I ate afterwards, but the worst seats in the house.

But Manchester's certainly a great place, so delighted to be here and to speak at this, and Happy Valentine's from yesterday as well.

So, to set the agenda, we'll go through what is account based marketing. We'll go through how account based marketing and inbound don't always agree. We'll also go through from a practical element.

So, within my five years at HubSpot, I've been working for nearly the last year with agencies, but prior to that I was a corporate rat in HubSpot. So I'll talk you through the practical elements around account based marketing and what HubSpot actually did. So, what was my role? How did I incorporate account based marketing into HubSpot?

So we'll look at certainly self-applications. So the first thing up is, so what is account based marketing? Now, I'll open this up to you guys as well so, let me know your feedback. I'm gonna ask the audience and if no one calls out, I'll call some people's names, but who's gonna be the first person to put their hand up and say what do they think account based marketing is? And don't be shy.

- [Man]: Is it marketing as an accountant?

- Twisting it around. So I think the first thing everyone does is look at the Wiki. So the definition of what account based marketing is, and I'll leave this up on the screen for you all to read, but it's basically a strategic approach to how you target companies. So it's around companies. It's really focusing in on companies and accounts rather than just individuals.

So I'll just leave that for a few seconds for you to think about account based marketing. There's some more typers.

So, account based marketing is different than ultimately purchasing a list. It's having a strategic approach around what types of companies do you want to work with. How do you engage from both a marketing and sales perspective, and how do you align?

So, as some of you may have probably previously done, it's always interesting to know whether people have purchased a list as well, or whether they've worked from a list, and most people have. It'll obviously change as well around GDPR, which Nikita will talk about afterwards.

But we wanna think about like how does ABM and account based marketing differ than buying a list, and how it differs is that strategic approach, and I'll go through six practical outcomes.

Some of you may recognise this, the yellow pages, and wonder why I'm putting it up, but this ultimately, and I've used lists before in my previous jobs around purchasing lists or working through the yellow pages. For those of you who don't know what the yellow pages is, it's basically a telephone book where you could gather a list of and make calls from, and a marketer’s and sale person's worst nightmare.

Has everyone used lists or purchase lists before? Okay. 50/50 I'd say. So I want you to shout out one word as to what it's like using a purchase list.

- [Woman] Bad idea.

-Bad idea, hard. Who else?

- [Man] Scattergun.

- Scattergun. Basically it's a nightmare. It's so frustrating, and it's frustrating from both marketing and from a sales perspective, because ultimately you're dealing with someone that's cold and nobody, you don't actually know why. It's not a strategic approach.

I'll share with you my experience as well with using this. So, when I finished my Master's, I went off to London to sell private jets, and I was given a list. So I was given a list of all the top high net worth individuals, and I thought it was a great idea to send them all an email with the same thing.

Little to say that I was so naive in terms of that that I didn't get much response, but I had my list and I had all the right people. I've got all my high net worth individuals. I'm gonna sell loads of flights and private jets.

Needless to say, it didn't work. It was so hard to sell off that list. Nobody responded to me because it was the same list. I thought that that one generic email was gonna have huge responses. It had very little responses, 'cause my emails, they weren't targeted and here's the six practical steps that I learned when I moved to HubSpot and what I introduced.

So step one is identify your target. Identify the types of companies you want to work with that are a good fit for you. Identify within that the types of people that you want to work with.

Now there's typically about three people that's involved in account based marketing. So one, you're looking at the company. Then you're looking at the types of people. Then you're choosing your content. And this is where marketing helps in.

So from a marketing perspective, you need to understand who the sales people are talking to so you can create the content that's relevant and also vice versa, because salespeople need to utilise the marketing around what types of communication are best.

And then choose your channels. So are you sending it out on Twitter, Social, LinkedIn? Do you already have obtained their email addresses? What's the best form, and that will also change depending on who you're targeting.

Then run that campaign. So effectively put it into place. And then measure those results. So there's no point in just having that scattergun approach. You want to make sure that it's all measured, it's all focused, and if you're using the HubSpot CRM or other types of CRMs, you can tell that this account based marketing, that this is ABM so you get results around it. So you're really focusing on high value accounts.

So I would've learned a lot if I had have taken this approach selling private jets, which clearly I didn't, and I had a really bad response from my emails. But if I had have targeted my emails, messaged it correctly, I would've been a lot more successful.

So how account based marketing and inbound don't always agree, and I'm also standing up here in front of you talking from HubSpot's perspective. So there is an overlap, but there are areas in which they both agree as well. Also as well, as Nikita will go through, GDPR.

So is account based marketing not average? Is that not going outbound and we're promoting inbound?

So in terms of this, with account based marketing, you're not just emailing people. You're targeting them very specifically on LinkedIn, on Social, retargeting campaigns. You're not just emailing them without their consent. You want to engage and make sure they've filled out those forms. Or you want to bring them if you're out mentioning on LinkedIn, send them back via a maybe, whether it's a meeting request or a landing page, with which it has that form for a free consultation. So then you're starting to get their consent, but obviously seek legal advice.

So, one side note, they were like, "Yes, you can put up the slide, "but you're to say seek legal advice." Other areas in which account based marketing and inbound overlap.

So, companies are number one. You always need to think about the companies. Who are those companies that you're targeting? You also want to be from a sales perspective not over-salesy. Nobody likes that over-salesy person. Everyone just hangs up the phone. You want to make sure that when you're connecting with them you know why, when, and who you're connecting with.

Also, personalisation is number one. Don't just message for the sake of messaging thinking that you have to get out a certain number of messaging. Make sure that from a marketing perspective you're marketing is relevant for who they are. So if it's a CMO verus a CEO versus a sales person, you'll send out different messages to them, and that's where marketing comes into play and is really pivotal. So you need to understand what types of marketing that you're creating for the different personas and then send that out accordingly.

Now also another key area that I'd overlook, is are they going to any events? Is there any events that you're going to or webinars? Is there something that's unique or different? Are they expanding? Are they opening up new offices? Why are you connecting with them? What's that reason for the outreach? And then you're being helpful with the content that you're providing.

And this also takes time. So this is going outbound, but it's a strategic approach to who you want to work with and who you can help. So it takes that little bit longer than someone coming direct to your website saying they want a free consultation. So it will take a little bit more time, but you're getting to work with the types of companies that suit your business and your organisation.

And then smarketing is key. So, smarketing I think is a HubSpot term where sales and marketing are aligned, because you need to both work together. So sales needs to work with marketing and marketing needs to work with sales 'cause from a marketing perspective, you've got great content out there. You want the sales team positioning it correctly and sales also needs to work with marketing to make sure that the positioning is correct, and then use data.

So I'll go through my stats with regards to HubSpot how that impacted so that you can see, right well, what does that look like? And it will be different for everybody, but we wanna make sure that it's as interactive and relevant for you.

So I'll go through my own experiences as well. So what did I do in HubSpot for the last four years around selling, how I utilised HubSpot and account based marketing. I'll also talk about some of the tools that I used for account based marketing. So afterwards you can utilise those. See how relevant they are for your business.

So, within HubSpot I was focusing in on corporate accounts. So I would focus in on, in total I could work with 600 accounts, so I've got 600 accounts, which is quite a lot. Out of those I would research and I would target specific companies through account based marketing.

So out of these 600 companies, I would target 70 on account based marketing. At any one time in a weekly basis, I would target 20. So that was my own back. So in total, I had 70 account based marketing companies that I'd work with, and then every week I'd break it down into 20. Get rid of some, get some out.

Like and it's also okay to remember that you're not gonna get everyone to come back and say, "Yes, I want." That's not the way it works, unfortunately, with all marketing, but understand the stats that are relevant for you.

So I've got 600 accounts I'm working of which 70 I'm handpicking, and I'll go through my process around handpicking. And within that, once I've identified the companies that I want to work with, I need three key personas. I'm also targeting as well companies that are 200 employees plus. So from that perspective--

- [Woman]Twitter.

- Ooh didn't like that. Do I really sound like that? So that's my solid landscape here. In total 600 accounts, 70 selected and handpicked by account based marketing, and from that, I would have three roles within each company.

Who I'm targeting is typically the CMO, the CEO, and a sales director at a minimum, because it's companies over 200. I also need someone in finance or procurement or COO or the chief commercial officer.

So always think about companies first, then within the companies do your research on who you want to target, and that messaging will differ. So the messaging that I'm sending to the CEO is very different than the messaging I'm sending to marketing is very different than the messaging I'm sending to sales. So that's where I'd align in with our marketing team at HubSpot and say, "I'm running this account "on a specific industry on a specific target. "What resources can I utilise that will be helpful "for these industries?"

And these are the types of tools that I would've used. So HubSpot sequences. That's shameless there. Buy sequences. The other where I'd always start as well is on LinkedIn. So I'd create my LinkedIn, who I wanted to target, 200 plus. I'd also look at geography. I'd also want to look at location around somewhere in the UK or London was an easy option for me because I could go over, I could meet with people, we would have events. So I had a really good reason to invite them.

I would also use, you can do Retargeting. So you can have it look at your lists that you're targeting and then you can retarget or remarket whether it's ad role, depending on what you guys use. I'd also use GrowthBot for my list or via Slack, so that came up with, you know, useful insights around who's using Marketo in London and I get a list of everybody and I'm like, "This is great," but there had to be a real reason as to why I'd reach out.

Direct mail, you still need to get it targeted, but if it's something unique, it's something different and it makes you stand out, then certainly, but you need to think about what you're sending and why you're sending it.

Engagio, Slack, Datanyze. So they're also other tools that I would've used, more so on the Datanyze. Really great insights in terms of that, shows you and utilises... Now there's lots of tools that are similar to Datanyze. So it's about finding out what works best for you.

But from Datanyze I could see what companies are currently using, what softwares they were using, how they were using it, when they'd instal that tracking code. So I could really create this list. Started off at LinkedIn creating my list. Then I would create HubSpot sequences so that I could tailor the information. I'm editing, I'm personalising that information, and I'm also using our marketing team, and then I'd also have options of Retargeting, Messaging, like even some-- Yep?

- [Woman]

- On a one to one perspective, yeah. So marketing and HubSpot marketing in general, the email is one to many, but the sequence is one to one, yep. Check it out.

But yeah, it's so easy, because then if someone responds to that sequence, it won't continue on with the emails or the idea of the sequence ultimately on the emails you're sending is to get a meeting. So I'd also pop in my meetings links to say, "Hey, book a meeting with me," and then you can use the forms appropriately to make sure then that you can consent as well from their perspective to send out emails.

And Nikita will jump in more on the details. So I'll have some questions as well for Nikita. I'll be like, "And what about this "on account based marketing?" But yeah, great question. Any other questions?

- [Man]

- Yep, so if on a weekly basis I'd work with a business development rep. So every week we'd target 20. So at the start of the week we'd sit down from 10 to 11 on a Monday and say, "Right, what are the 20 that we're gonna target today?"

So out of those 20, we would look at then, 12, you'd be lucky to get engaged. From that, you'd get about eight that you'd have a call with. From that, four you'd get a demonstration with around showing them what HubSpot did and then two would purchase. So out of the 20 you'd whittle it down that a success rate would be around two. But it would take that little bit longer.

And then also as well like there's people that you know what, now's not the right time, and they didn't want to be engaged, and that's also fine. But really important to know the metrics around what success looks like, otherwise you can send so many different types of communications and not get any response.

Also think about a realistic number. So for me, 20 was a realistic number each week. Right, so what we did is, I worked with my business development rep and we said 20. Okay so that's grand, so we'll work that out that we can each contact four, that's four a day, that's two each. So that's something that's a number that's realistic.

And I'm like, "Okay, yeah I can do that. "I can commit to that."

Because if you don't give yourself a specific target, if you start off with 70, you're like, "That's just too many. "I'm not actually going to bother doing that," but if you break it down into chunk size pieces or a daily target, it's more realistic for you to actually do it.

- [Man] So about how many?

- Eight. Oh, eight per individual, so a sequence. See, it made it so easy with a sequence, 'cause I could have my five emails that I can edit and change and then I'd create tasks within there to follow up and to call. But on average, eight touches. That goes from both email and from say voicemails or calls.

- [Man] After the eight, if you get engagement?

- Yeah.

- [Man] Would you then just point out and?

- Yeah. Exactly, and I'd send that over to marketing to nurture.

- [Man]

- Yeah, so I'd be like, "Right, pop them back into," because I'd tell marketing like, "I don't really want you "sending more emails to these guys, this list, "because they're just getting bombarded "and they'll only get annoyed."

So I'd get them out of certain types of communications if they hadn't subscribed for it, and then I'd say to marketing, "Can you re-engage this lot "if there's any specific events?"

I might follow up in a couple months with them to say, "Hey, we've an event that I thought "you might be interested in." But getting them out is also as good as getting them back in or engaged so, it's always good to know that, because sometimes you think, "Oh someone's not interested."

You don't also want to waste your time or annoy them sending emails and frustrating. You want to be helpful and you want to send them information that's relevant. Great question. I've had two good questions there. I've forgotten, I think there's--

- [Woman] Yeah

- Yeah, I think for the good questions, there's a couple of good questions there so there's like HubSpot swag gifts.

Is anybody using account based marketing or thinking of doing it? Oh wow. How are you finding it? So there's quite a few in the room that are using account based marketing.

- [Man] Yeah, HubSpot sequence is brilliant.

- Yeah.

- [Man] I really enjoy it and we're talking to sequence is great, authentic

- Yeah.

- [Man] High success with that experience Knowing at what point to call

- Yeah. So I typically send five emails and three connect calls. So that would be my--

- [Man]

- Yeah. I think you have to be kind of cutthroat around that, too So yeah, it seems like quite a lot of people then are utilising but certainly spend time with both marketing and sales. Sit down, have that discussion.

It also comes into both sales and marketing alignment, but exactly as I had gone through having your LinkedIn, having your sequences, it makes life so much easier than working from your list that you're just not getting that engagement, and then the types of companies that you want to target. Any other questions, yeah?

- [Woman] So, you work out your own list? It's not like you're getting from your marketing a list of?

- Yep, that's separate, so I work at my own list. So I have 600 accounts in total. The other ones are coming from HubSpot but there are 70 ones that I've selected. Perfect time for this.

So, this is a typical list that I would run on LinkedIn. Geographic is London if I'm travelling to London. Industry, I wanna target computer software. Company headcount is 500 to 200 and then as well maybe look at turnover or revenue.

Another area I look at, do they both have sales and marketing? So do they have a sales team? Do they have a marketing team? So that's a perfect question for me to line up. So I'm handpicking these and this is the standard criteria that I would work. This also evolves.

So while I say this year for the first six months I'm targeting computer software, that might change to education in the second six months. It might change to different industry or targeting that marketing's also focusing on. So this list and this who I'm targeting now can evolve over time. But one thing to note, like this came up with a nice result for me, 35 target companies. I'm like, "Perfect." That's a really nice number to go with. It's something that's realistic that I can work with with my team and say, "Right we've 35 companies "we want to work with here. "We've an event on in London. "

These are the companies that are growing "and that are scaling." And I'd have a genuine reason then to where I can help and support. And then I'd set up my sequences. So the deck will be shared afterwards, but ultimately I'd have a standard template on my sequences so I'm not starting from scratch and then I edit it.

And also as well it sounds silly, but sometimes we put spelling mistakes in on purpose so people would actually realise this is not just an email that's been sent out, but it's someone that's an individual rather than just a marketing list that's been blasted out to everybody. So I'd always have my benchmarks and then within that, I'd spend time researching that company. Are they expanding? Are they recruiting? Do they need more leads? And I'm offering advice, tips, suggestions that are helpful for them. And then within this I have also my call list.

That's very small. Even I can't read it and I'm up here. But you can get the idea.

So we wanna make sure that you're really aligning both sales and marketing. And also, I'd get marketing to pre approve some of these and they'd offer help and suggestions, or to come back and be like, "Okay, I need more information on how we can help "the CMO or how we can help the salesperson."

I've also got different types of questions so I came up as well. Right well, the content, the email, the questions that we're sending to marketing people are different than sales people. So depending on who you're targeting, the types of questions then when you're on the phone to them or sending emails to are totally different. So I'll run through some of these but I've got like a list of marketing roles and questions that you'd ask the marketing team verus the sales team.

So I'll just go through... Getting ahead of myself there. So these are some of the types of questions that I'd ask on the marketing side. So it really is very different. So as an example here, if it's the CMO that I'm connecting with, the types of questions I'm asking a CMO are very different than the social media coordinator.

It sounds obvious but people also forget to put those questions in on their email or when they're talking to them, right. What's gonna be relevant for that CMO? What types of questions do I need to be asking them based on their role or their marketing director? So if it's a CMO, you've got types of questions here that you want to be asking them versus you know a marketing manager, a marketing director.

But it's really thinking about what are their needs? So what's a marketing director want? What do they need? So in this instance, we're looking at a lot of execution programmes. If it's a VP, they're looking at strategy, they're looking at revenue. So therefore, the questions will correlate with that and how do you show the value of your team to the senior management? Because they have to report on that.

So now you're aligning the types of questions that you have when you're on the phone or in your emails to their role, who they are, and you're making it more personalised, 'cause you have to get it personalised.

We all know, actually now we actually send too many emails nowadays. It's like people think sometimes think email is the answer so I nearly think GDPR is a good thing coming in that you have to consent because it's always been in GDPR but now we're making it that you can't just send a blasted email and nobody wants to get those types of emails where you clearly know it's been sent to 100 people.

You wanna make sure that it's personalised, you know who they are, you know the companies that's relevant, and you know the types of questions. People appreciate that. You don't wanna jump on a call and they've no insight to who you are, or they're asking questions.

Actually I got an email the other day asking did I want to buy a list, and I was like, "Really, do I want to buy a list?" and I'm talking about GDPR and it's HubSpot and I'm like, "No, I don't want to purchase a list from you, "and I'm the wrong person, and like this is..." And think about your own personal experience. Think about when you've got sent that email around, wasn't tailored. It was just a blasted blanket email hoping for that scattergun approach as you had mentioned.

So think about the types of questions that are relevant to the different people. So you can have a look through these afterwards. They're both sales and marketing.

So on this sales row it's more around BP of sales, directors, right down to the BDR, because sometimes on account based marketing you have to reach out with someone that's an influencer. They might be your way in. They're not the ideal person, but they're still very important.

So in this instance you're asking more around quota. You're asking more about exceeding your targets versus on the marketing side, it's very different types of questions that you're asking. So this is always a really great standpoint to have that list in front of you to say, "Right, "I'm gonna add that question into the email, "because then at least they know I have done "some research."

And these are the types of companies that I've work with in HubSpot. These are all on our customer page, but we've got Clarinet, we've got Bitdefender. They're all really large companies that I've work with, but where it started off was creating a list on LinkedIn.

So we've got everything from education companies that have 200 plus. The majority of these are based in London, but these all came from account based marketing and from me having a very strategic approach on how to connect with them and the reasons as to why I'm connecting with them.

So just to go back on my six key steps.

So when you're running the account based marketing, one identify what companies are a good fit for you. So it would be different for each and every one of you. You'll all have different companies that you want to target. You'll all have different people then within.

So once we've identified the types of companies we want to work with, you then need three people from that organisation. You need to think about who you're connecting and why you're connecting with them. Create the content around them.

So marketing and sales work together in getting the content that's relevant for the company, for the CMO or the CEO, and how you can add value and be helpful and personalised. Choose the channels. Is it Twitter? Is it LinkedIn? Is is Direct Mail? Is it email if they've consented already? Utilise your existing database. Don't forget about that, not just on LinkedIn.

Understand what channels those companies are actually working with. So, are they on Twitter? If so, I'll tweet them. If they're not, well maybe it's a bit pointless. So that will actually tailor. You need to do the research on that.

Run that campaign. As I've mentioned, I would focus in on 20 each and every week and then call them after a certain period of time. Sounds quite harsh, but you need to make sure that you're very targeted, and it also saves you time.

Measure the results. Number one, it's so important to measure the results and the success rate of that. The HubSpot sequences is great 'cause you can actually see which ones have been opened or which ones have been engaged or who replied or did they go through the whole sequence? What happened to them? Or if they just ran their course and now they're back with marketing. So you can revisit that and see what was success, but you need to know the metrics.

So it might take a little bit of time if you're starting on it, but I knew that if I contacted 20 that would break down to 12 would respond, four of which would be saying, "Not interested." I'd get eight, I'd break it down to four and I'd get two that would close. So always know the numbers that are relevant for you and make it practical. Make it a number that you can commit to, whether that's one a day, whether that's one a week, but don't start off and be, "I'm gonna target 70 companies." You'll never do it.

Make it realistic for you and your team and have the support of both marketing and sales.

So those are the six key steps.

And anymore questions? I know there's been questions kinda throughout, but yep?

- [Woman]

- So how I research those 20 accounts? I'd work with a business development rep and we'd sit down and we'd go through a LinkedIn list or go through the database and think, "Right, "who is really engaging in HubSpot or what industry "do we want to work with?" So I would focus a lot on industry. I would also focus a lot on geographic location, and I had to work with companies that were 200 plus.

- [Woman]

- There's two of us, yeah. So my other colleague, he'd help organise meetings for me. But at the start with HubSpot it was just myself with that scaled over time, then I got somebody else.

- [Woman] How do you initiate?

- Yeah, so how I initiate the first person, it really depends. So LinkedIn message is great to see if they've engaged and then what you wanna do is send them now back ideally to like a free consultation landing page that they fill out their details, that they can engage.

If they've already consented, set up those sequences, but there has to be a reason as to why you're messaging them. So when you're doing your research I would look for if they're opening new offices, if they're hiring people, because if they're hiring people they need more leads or they need more leads for the sales people and there's genuine reason that you're reaching out.

- [Woman] And how do you get them to consent?

- Yeah.

- [Woman] And have that conversation

- Yeah.

- [Woman]

- Email. Nikeeta GDPR are up next Seek legal advice It's leading on perfectly nicely for Nikeeta. We're teeing her off Yep?

- [Man] Just on the sequences side of things

- Yep.

- [Man] 'cause I've been using that and I've found that most effective when you incorporate that into a workflow.

- Yeah.

- [Man] So consequently, as soon as someone's engaging that sequence

- Yeah.

- [Man] So let me know that they both I particularly got one set up. 'cause then it prioritises

- Yeah.

- [Man] So I know that that's a hot lead in there. It's been passed around the organisation. You can't tell if it's been passed around and only three people have opened it or one person has opened it three times. at least you know that it's a lot

- Yep.

- [Man]

- Yep, absolutely Jonathan, and you can as well like if you can see if they opened the email three times if they came back to the website, send me an email to say I have to call them immediately. So you can structure it that way that you know I have to call this person because they've now come back to the website, they're engaging.

But you're speaking to them at the right time. It's not like you're just calling them out of the blue and being like, "Hi, I'm just calling here again "for the fifth time." It's based on their interactions because you know they're back on your website or that they've engaged in the email that now's the right time to connect with them.

- [Woman] So you know, you mentioned about?

- Yep.

- [Woman] How would you find out that information?

- Yep, so I'd look on LinkedIn or their company website or look at say the vacancies or if they're hiring so I'd do a lot of research on... That's why it takes time. So account based marketing does take time because you have to do the research and you have to personalise it, but the benefit is that you get to work with the types of companies that are a good fit for you.

Now that will be different for all of you, but you get to work with who you want to work with and whose the right fit. Now whether that's people, whether that's companies, you'll start to understand what works for you. Good?